In view of the tremendous opportunities and advantages of cybernetics and phenomenal growth of internet, mobile technologies, digital instrumentation, there have arisen serious concerns in the arena of protecting intellectual property rights of creative digital works, for example, software, digital images, digitized music, e-books, etc. The growth of digital information transmission worries copyright holders who fear that the new technology threatens their rights because of greater piracy, increased theft of digital works at the information transfer stage and widespread sharing of digital works.
Piracy copying of software, particularly software adapted to run on personal computers, is an extensive problem to software vendors which annually costs them large amounts of money. On average, the software industry loses about US$11 to US$12 billion in revenue to software piracy annually. The conventional methods employed to protect software against unauthorized utilization by demanding a password for the installation or operation of a specific computer program or program package, for example, have not provided sufficient security.
Several attempts have already been made to establish arrangements in which simply typing a required password is not sufficient to gain access to a program. For example, systems have been proposed which require that a special hardware unit is connected to the computer to make it possible to utilize a given program. This unit may take the form of a blind plug (also termed “dongle”), for example, which is connected directly to one of the input-output terminals of the computer, and containing fixed tables, identity number, or the like, stored in an internal memory from which information is read upon the request of a programmed additional routine included for this purpose in the application program in question. The unit may also take the form of a card reader station, or the like, in which a card is inserted, the matter stored on the card in principle being similar to that of the blind plug above. Usually the checking procedure involves that the additional routine of the program makes a direct comparison of the program identity, for example, and a corresponding item of information present in the stored table. Thus, an arrangement making it possible to use a certain computer program or a computer program package only if the permission of the copyright holder really exists would be of great importance.
One attempt to address the above challenges was a proposed utilization of biometric access control systems by the sending and receiving party to authenticate the identity of the sending and receiving party. The use of biometric technologies has previously gained some acceptance in the field of content access control, and so, application of such technologies to the goal of securing copyrighted content is a reasonable approach.
Biometrics is a field of technology aimed at utilizing one or more unique personal characteristics of an individual, ranging, for example, from their fingerprints to their hand vein pattern, odor, iris image, or their DNA, to authenticate their identity. Biometric technologies are typically of two types—passive and active. Passive biometrics either do not require the individual who's identity is being verified to do anything other than to enable a certain biometric characteristic to be acquired by the system (e.g., by placing a finger on a fingerprint scanner, by looking into a retinal scanner, or by looking in the direction of a facial scanner). Active biometrics require the individual who's identity is being verified to perform one or more predetermined actions in order to enable the system to acquire the representation of one or more appropriate biometric characteristics (e.g., by providing a signature, by speaking, by squeezing a certain object, etc.). Certain types of biometric systems may incorporate a combination of active and passive biometric approaches. The various types of biometric systems are discussed in greater detail in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/332,017 entitled “MULTIPLATFORM INDEPENDENT BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM”, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
It would thus be desirable to provide a system and method for restricting access to creative digital works to one or more specific identified individuals. It would further be desirable to provide a system and method for preserving the identity of the author of a particular creative work and the date and location of its creation. It would additionally be desirable, to provide a system and method for registering, tracking and biometrically verifying identities of users/licensees of various creative works.